Styx's Storm (Breeds 16)

"Jonas, you're no' helping matters," Styx muttered, her lungs laboring as she fought to breathe through the panic assailing her.

"I'm not trying to help matters, Wolf." Irritation filled his voice as Storme kicked once again at the Breed holding her. "You're not going to be able to reason with her. Do you smell the terror rolling off her? She's beyond reason, Styx."

"Enough, Jonas."

She was not beyond reason. She was never beyond humanity.

"There's no reasoning with you," she sobbed, coming halfway off the bed to slap at the Breed holding her, only to have him push her back once again. "You're animals. Rabid, vicious animals that know nothing but killing. Nothing but death."

"Because we were given nothing but death." Styx was suddenly in her face, his lips pulled back from his teeth, canines sharp and wicked, snapping mere inches from her. "Your father helped create us. Your brother helped train us. We were given nothing but death, horror and pain, and you expect us to lie back and politely ask for more?"

"I expect you not to kill those helping you," she screamed.

"Call another Breed an animal again in front of me, and as God is my witness I will paddle your ass red." Those teeth snapped again. "You have no fear of death from me, you vicious little wretch. What you should fear though is being treated as the child you appear to be."

He released her.

Storme stared up at him in shock as he stood next to the bed, staring down at her as though he were no more than irritated over a child's antics.

"Dr. Armani's coming up the drive now, Styx," Jonas announced, the clear amusement in his voice drawing another glare from her. "You might want to get her out of those jeans before she gets here. I'd hate for Nikki to have to suffer those quick little feet for doing a good deed."

He didn't say a word. Before Storme could fight back, he tore apart the snap and zipper of her jeans, and before she could do more than rasp out a shocked "What ...," the jeans were coming off her legs, only to come to a stop at her boots.

Gripping the hem of the denim, she fought to cover the fact that she was completely naked beneath the jeans as he gripped one foot then the other and within seconds jerked the boots from her feet.

There was no way to fight him.

Furious tears rolled down her cheeks as she tried, only to find every move she made completely ineffective against him.

He didn't speak, he didn't argue with her, and he didn't demand she undress. He simply undressed her, as though she were the child he had accused her of being and he was tired of arguing the matter.

Storme found herself jerking the blanket from the bottom of the bed to cover the nakedness of her lower body as she sat on the mattress, glaring up at him with all the ineffective fury and fear that had ever raced through her system.

"Someone needs to do something about the stink of her fear," Jonas sighed. "Should I give her a reason to be afraid, do you think?"

"Shut up, Jonas." The muttered order drew Storme's gaze back to the irritated Wolf Breed that watched her with lush, heavily lashed eyes and a stern irritation in his gaze.

Her lips parted to throw a string of insults at him that would have withered even the worst of the filthy creatures that had been "created."

His finger came up with a sharp growl from his throat. "Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm joking about that paddling," he warned her. "It will happen."

As he stepped back, another, lower growl rumbled in his chest as the dark-skinned, braided doctor entered the room.

Storme stared at her silently. Dr. Nikki Armani. She was human. A child protege for the Council when she had worked for them. She had learned Breed genetics at her father's knee as a young girl and trained under the best scientists at several labs. For a brief time, she had even been in the Andes lab, several years before the Breed rescues.

"Keep her away from me." She was the enemy, just as the Breeds were, just as the Council was.

Storme's gaze slashed back to the red Wolf, the overwhelming fury that enveloped her burning through her mind. "Don't let her touch me."

"Shall I hold you down while she repairs that gash you just tore into your hip?" he snapped. "Settle your ass down or that's exactly what I'll do."

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The gash?

Her gaze went to the flesh burning high on her hip, and her eyes widened. It was deep and bleeding sluggishly, while the flesh around it appeared to be bruising heavily.

It was at least four inches long and, judging by the amount of blood soaking into the sheets, deep enough to have been dangerous.